Priest Gets 5-Year Term for Anti-Abortion Role

A judge Monday revoked the probation of a Roman Catholic priest convicted in an attack on an abortion clinic and sentenced him to five years in jail.

Father Edward Markley was convicted in April, 1985, on charges stemming from a sledgehammer attack on the Birmingham Women’s Medical Clinic. As a condition of his probation, he was ordered not to participate in any protests. Circuit Judge J. Richmond Pearson revoked the probation after Markley appeared at a protest outside a Birmingham women’s clinic last January.